80s DC TV Show Would’ve Featured 40-Year-Old Flash & Bizarre Team Of Heroes

The 1990 TV show starring The Flash, the first television adaptation of the character, actually started as an entirely different series called Unlimited Powers, starring an aged Barry Allen and a host of heroes in a dystopian world where superheroes are illegal. The Scarlet Speedster has long been one of DC’s most popular heroes and has appeared in many forms, both animated and live-action, in toys and video games, and much more. The Flash TV series that is part of the Arrowverse is going strong as it heads into season 7, and the character is even set for a solo feature in the DCEU, also named The Flash.

The first of these adaptations, however, came in 1990 with a Flash played by John Wesley Shipp. The series was a rather by-the-books superhero affair, with the lightning-fast hero taking on a new villain more or less each episode, growing into the powers that he acquires in the pilot. The show was ill-fated, only running for one season, unable to compete with the primetime heavy hitters of the era. Subsequent Flash adaptations, at least, have certainly not forgotten the series, with Shipp appearing in the 2014 TV show. Fans recently joined Shipp in remembering the niche series as he commemorated its thirtieth anniversary on Twitter.

But The Flash of 1990 was not always just about the Scarlet Speedster – it was initially a different series with a whole team of heroes. Writers Danny Bilson and Paul De Meo spoke to Den of Geek about their original plans for a series called Unlimited Powers. The show would have featured a 40-year-old Barry Allen who had just been released from a 15-year stint in prison. He would have been joined by little-known heroes Blok and Doctor Occult as well as his successor, Wally West, Green Arrow, and the sharpshooting hero’s teenage daughter. Set in a world where superheroes have been outlawed, and supervillains secretly dominate behind the scenes, the series was inspired by darker and grittier takes on the superhero genre that was popular at the time, such as the Tim Burton Batman films and Watchmen.

As they were quite fond of the script that they’d written, it’s unfortunate that Bilson and De Meo were ahead of their time. Unlimited Powers would fit right at home thirty years later when Watchmen has received a critically acclaimed limited series, and the Dark Knight films are widely regarded as instant classics. Even superhero ensembles, as opposed to solo ventures, have seen an uptick with Avengers and the TV Arrowverse thriving off of the interconnected adventures of Marvel and DC’s icons, respectively.

Perhaps all hope is not lost. The upcoming film starring  The Flash is based on the Flashpoint plot in the comics, which sees Barry Allen travel between timelines to meet alternate versions of his fellow DC heroes. As the DCEU expands and the speedy hero grows with it, who’s to say the spiritual successor to Unlimited Powers won’t out itself eventually. Bilson and De Meo are still at work, most recently penning the script to Spike Lee’s Da 5 Bloods. There’s no time like the present.

Source: Den of Geek

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